• Miaou@jlai.lu
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    2 days ago

    Plenty of non Chinese brands are on the EV train now.

    I can buy an Alpine that it is, in every conceivable way, better than the cheapest VW EV (while being a bit cheaper, or the same price). How is this not a problem with German manufacturers specifically?

    • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
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      2 days ago

      What are all the conceivable ways to you? Anyway, the Renault 5 is almost as much as the bigger id.3 neo here and we don’t have anyone selling the Alpine version as it’s more expensive than the 5 and thus too expensive for such a tiny car.

      And all of these cost at least 4x as much as a similarly sized but lower power BYD does in China. That’s how much cheaper the Chinese can build their cars. When they sell the same batteries to Renault or VW, the batteries alone likely cost about as much as BYD’s entire car. And we can’t really produce these batteries at such scale here in Europe because of pollution regulation. China processes most of the world’s lithium and cobalt. Only hope we have is coming up with a magic battery chemistry that doesn’t come with a ton of environmental issues, but unfortunately Donut Labs is more than likely a scam.